Importance of microbial adaptation for concentrate management in wastewater reuse process

Abstract

Wastewater reuse has gained attention as an alternative and sustainable water resource. Reverse osmosis has been widely applied for wastewater reuse; however, generation of concentrate stream is the main drawback. Concentrate stream contains high concentrations of contaminants, and therefore, it should be properly treated prior to being discharged into a water body. Several technologies have been suggested for concentrate management, but the most common option is returning this stream to a wastewater treatment plant where a wastewater reuse plant is located. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of concentrate management by returning the concentrate to a wastewater treatment facility as a part of influent. The characteristics of the concentrate were extensively monitored, and it was verified that it contained high concentrations of salt and hardly biodegradable organics, which impede their application in biological wastewater treatment processes. The effect of seeding sludge was investigated using two different types of seeding sludge, adapted and unadapted. The adapted sludge taken at the wastewater treatment plant located at the wastewater reuse facility showed much better performance in terms of organic and nutrients removal. Moreover, the performance was recovered by a few days of additional adaptation time. However, the seeding sludge taken from another wastewater treatment plant (unadapted) showed poor performance due to different influent characteristics, especially salt concentration. Therefore, it could be concluded that the microbial adaptation step is very important for effective concentrate treatment when it is being returned to a wastewater plant as influent.

Water reclamation and reuse

“…Concentrate stream generated after RO process for wastewater reclamation was found to be high in salinity and hardly biodegradable organics, which impaired its treatability via the biological wastewater treatment process when it was returned to a WRRF, a common measure taken to manage the concentrate stream (Moon, Ahn, Lee, & Hwang, 2019). Key to the successful concentrate management is the adoption of seeding sludge (microbial communities) that is adapted to metabolize in such type of wastewater (Moon et al, 2019).…”

“…Concentrate stream generated after RO process for wastewater reclamation was found to be high in salinity and hardly biodegradable organics, which impaired its treatability via the biological wastewater treatment process when it was returned to a WRRF, a common measure taken to manage the concentrate stream (Moon, Ahn, Lee, & Hwang, 2019). Key to the successful concentrate management is the adoption of seeding sludge (microbial communities) that is adapted to metabolize in such type of wastewater (Moon et al, 2019). Concentrate of an integrated MBR‐RO process for industrial wastewater reclamation was managed in a concentrate recirculation mode by partially or completely returning the concentrate to the RO membrane for further reduction of discharge volume and recovery of valuable compounds (Tomasini et al, 2019).…”

Microalgal potential for nutrient-energy-wastewater nexus: Innovations, current trends and future directions

“…With rapid increase in population, industrialization, and urbanization, the global demand for water, energy and food has been increasing significantly and remediation approaches are the need of the hour. 146,147 The concept of Nutrient: Energy: Wastewater (NEW) nexus can promote sustainable development under changing environment and protect the global resource systems. These aspects fit well to the circular economy guidelines where the key aspects are prioritized at waste recycling, recovery of valuable resources from waste and reusing them.…”

Modified Chitosan Based on Optimized Design in the Treatment of Microbial Leaching Wastewater

“…In recent years, with the development of economy and the acceleration of industrialization, the increasingly serious environmental pollution problem has become a major challenge for human beings, such as water pollution, soil pollution and air pollution [1]. Among them, heavy metal ions are the most important pollutants in water pollution.…”